The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

The Library of Babel

Interpretative Questions
  1. Does the narrator suggest that all knowledge is available?
  2. As both readers and narrator, we are part of the library (the universe). How can we understand the universe if we cannot examine the whole? Can we only gain partial knowledge of reality?
  3. What are the Vindications?
  4. What is the Crimson Hexagon?
  5. The narrator observes that, despite the challenges, fundamental discoveries about the library have been made. Do these discoveries arouse unrealistic expectations?
  6. What "elegant hope" gladdens the solitude of the narrator?
Discussion Questions
  1. Are we deluded by what we think is knowable?
  2. Are we all inquisitors?
  3. Does a search for the right book in the library deter us from writing our own book?
  4. Has our book already been written?

1 comment:

  1. RobertJanuary 16, 2015 at 3:01 PM

    THE STRANGE LIBRARY

    To mark the publication of Haruki Murakami's new novel, The Strange Library, this month's Athenaeum Staff Picks celebrates libraries and all things bookish. The titles span a range of different genres including, fiction, mystery, non-fiction and biography. Featured are strange and fantastical libraries, Victorian libraries, a cemetery of forgotten books, a unique Parisian bookstore and much more. Below is a partial list.

    Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
    Possession by A.S. Byatt
    The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee
    The Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse
    Matilda by Roald Dahl
    The Artist's Library by Laura Damon-Moore and Erinn Batyhefer
    The Book Shop by Penelope Fitzgerald
    The Republic of Imagination by Azar Nafisi
    The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    Biblio Craft by Jessica Pigza

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